"Roy N5804F" wrote:
Alas, my instructor is no more and his replacement, a very decent and young
enthusiastic CFII, is astounded that I was filing and getting my own
clearances.
Now he does the planning, file the plans and gets the clearances. I fly the
plane while he talks to ATC. He is PIC and may as well take the left seat.
However, as I said, he is a nice guy and he is giving me the final few
hours that I need to log before being eligable for the checkride.
Ok I have arguably bust the FAR's, but I know which guy I would prefer in my
right seat !

One of the hardest things about learning to be an instructor is learning to
shut up and sit on your hands. It sounds like your guy hasn't learned this
yet.

He's cheating you by doing all that stuff for you. Tell him you want to do
it all yourself (just like you used to).

On the other hand, if you're really just a few hours away from the
checkride, and you feel confident about your skills, he really is just
there for the ride and to give you some signatures when you need them.

If he really is doing all the talking on the radio, take advantage of the
workload reduction and concentrate that much more on flying perfectly. See
if you can hold altitude to +/- 20 feet and heading to +/- 1 degree.
Concentrate on flying the ILS to +/- 1 dot deflection on either needle.
This is far more accurately than you'll ever have to do on the checkride
(or in real life).